People are becoming increasingly preoccupied with the effects of diet on their health and overall wellbeing. For this reason, a growing number of Americans seek to reduce their intake of preservatives and food additives, reduce their consumption of fats and cholesterol, and lower their intake of processed sugar. In addition, a growing segment of the population needs to exclude all dairy products from their diet due to allergy. For all of the aforementioned people there is a need for a machine that can produce healthful desserts and frozen foods that will allow them to exclude the above named non-desired food ingredients from their diets.
Various devices have been suggested over the years for forming frozen products, such as dessert products like ice cream. An ice cream freezer is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 749,286 to Gerner. Such an apparatus is quite complex as the can itself is rotated during the food making process. In. U.S. Pat. No. 2,132,364 to Thompson, an apparatus is disclosed for forming ice cream wherein air is introduced to create an overrun. Such an apparatus is quite complex and a liquid mix is fed into the air cylinder. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,864,419 to Woock and U.S. Pat. No. 3,976,001 to Trovlager, conventional juicers are disclosed. In Thomas, U.S. Pat. No. 2,513,974, a juice extractor is disclosed in which the ground-up food is merely fed by gravity to the operating cylinder, not pushed as may be necessary with masticated solids. In Carpigiani, U.S. Pat. No. 3,818,716, an ice cream machine is disclosed where the food material is frozen in a cylinder and not thereafter masticated. In Feldpausch, U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,175 an apparatus for making frozen foods including a mastication cylinder, a frozen food material feeder leading into the mastication cylinder, a masticator disposed in the cylinder and an aeration cylinder for introducing air into masticated frozen food fed into the aeration cylinder is disclosed.
None of these patents disclose a simple to use machine that produces pure masticated frozen foodstuffs with a creamy texture with no air or other ingredients added.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus for forming such frozen foodstuffs. Such an apparatus should be simple to use, economical and relatively easy to manufacture.
It is an object therefore of this invention to provide an apparatus that creates a creamy textured frozen food product that utilizes as its only ingredient frozen fruits, vegetables, or other foodstuffs.
It is another object of this invention to provide an apparatus to produce a frozen dessert that can be made without the addition of food additives and preservatives.
It is yet another object to provide a frozen dessert that can be made substantially fat free.
This and other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.
The invention accordingly comprises the apparatus and product possessing the features, properties and the relation of components and the process involving the several steps in relation and order of one or more of such steps with respect each of the others all of which are exemplified in the following detailed disclosure and the scope of the application of which will be indicated in the claims.
For a fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the invention reference should be made to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.